


On Three

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caring Castiel, Caring Sam Winchester, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 04:32:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16906155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It’s just a splinter.It shouldn’t hurt as much as this, and it shouldn’t be causing Dean this much grief.But it is, which means Sam is going to take care of it.





	On Three

It’s three days after they come back from the other dimension that Dean finally admits defeat.

He’s tried everything: soaking his finger, trimming the nail down as far as he could, applying a poultice.

But nothing’s worked. The splinter of wood is still firmly wedged underneath his finger nail, and it hurts more then Dean feels like it should.

Even trying to dig it out with a needle didn’t help. If anything, it just made it worse, blood welling up so he couldn’t see what he was doing.

And now his finger is red and swollen and Dean knows that’s not a good sign.

If Cas was home, problem solved. But he isn’t and though Dean knows Cas would come rushing back no matter how minor the issue, he’s not about to call the angel back home for this.

But he can only hide it so long and it’s Sam who notices it. Dean’s passing him coffee and he cringes at the hot pressure on that hand, and only realises his mistake once he’s put the mug down and Sam’s caught his hand.

“Dean, what the hell?”

Dean tries to tug free, but Sam won’t let go. He turns Dean’s hand carefully, glaring at the swollen digit.

“When did this happen?”

Dean relents, and sits down. “When we we were through in that other place,” he says. “I don’t know how I picked it up, didn’t notice until we got back. Little shit won’t move.”

“Yeah, it’s in deep.”

Like Dean needs to be told that. He winces as Sam presses gently around the nail bed. “That hurt?”

“Does a bear-“

Sam squeezes the wrong place and Dean can’t speak for a moment. This has no business hurting so damn much.

“Okay.” Sam mercifully lets go, and Dean remembers to breathe again. “I’m going to get some things. Come to the bathroom, okay?”

He’s gone before Dean can say yay or nay. For a moment, fleeing in the impala seems like a better prospect that having Sam dig around in his already throbbing finger but Dean knows leaving this any longer is a ticket to the ER.

He gets up and heads off to the bathroom.

++

Sam’s put a clean cloth down on the bathroom counter. There’s a needle, a pair of very fine sharp pointed tweezers, some cotton wool, and a bottle of alcohol.

Dean reaches for the bottle, but Sam slaps his hand away. Just as it well it _isn’t_ the one with a massive splinter stuck in one of the fingers.

“That’s for disinfecting it,” Sam chides, and kicks a stool over for Dean to sit on. “What have you tried so far?”

Dean nods at Sam’s tools. “All of that.”

“One handed,” Sam says, and gives his brother a disapproving stare. “Let’s see if I have any better luck.”

He pours some alcohol over Dean’s fingers first, and that ratchets the throbbing pain up to push at Dean’s limits. He makes himself hold still though as Sam dabs the area dry with the cotton, and then picks up the needle.

He pokes carefully around the splinter, trying to make room to get at it with the tweezers. Even that is agony, and Dean clamps his jaw shut because he’s not convinced he can stop himself telling Sam to just let it alone.

That’s an option.

Then Sam picks up the tweezers. “This is probably going to hurt.”

Like it’s been all giggles so far. Dean snatches up the bottle while Sam’s focused on his mining expedition and takes a long swig. 

He thinks about putting the bottle back, then decides to hang on to it.

It gives him something to squeeze when Sam tries to get that first grip of the tree trunk buried under Dean’s fingernail.

When he misses, the tweezers scrape the swollen skin instead, and Dean can’t help but let fly with a string of curses.

“Sorry,” Sam says. “Look, this is going to take a bit of probing.”

Dean waves him on. The longer they leave this, the worse it’ll hurt, and it’s bad enough now.

He tries not to look, but he can’t force his gaze away. Sam almost has the tiny edge of wood sticking out a couple of times, but it’s hard to grip. 

Frustrated, he sets the tweezers down and grabs a pen knife from his pocket. He tugs the bottle of booze from Dean’s grip, frowning at the much reduced volume of liquid it now contains, and splashes some over the blade.

Then he carefully slices away a sliver of Dean’s fingernail.

Dean’s very glad he’s half drunk at that point. He still nearly jumps off the stool.

But it leaves a longer length of splinter for Sam to grab, and this time when he uses the tweezers he gets a hold and manages to keep it.

When he pulls, Dean feels like screaming.

He feels every millimetre of movement as Sam eases out the splinter and then, finally, it’s gone.

Sam holds it up, relieved (though not half as much as Dean) and Dean can’t believe something so small caused him so much pain.

But that’s nothing to when Sam pours most of what’s left of the whiskey over Dean’s finger.

Dean can feel the colour draining from his face, and he’s not surprised at the worried look that appears on Sam.

“Dude, are you going to-?”

“Maybe,” Dean slurs, and that’s the last thing he knows for a while.

++

He wakes up later to find Cas sitting next to the bed, reading.

The angel looks up when he realises Dean is awake. “Hello, Dean.”

Dean grunts a greeting, and then lifts his hand, a little worried at what he’s going to see.

What he sees is his finger, completely healed. There’s nothing to say he’d ever hurt it.

“It was badly infected, and had begun to spread,” Cas explains. “I’ve taken care of it, but you needed sleep. Sam says you should have told him you’d hurt yourself, and that it was keeping you from getting rest.”

Dean sits up, propping himself against the headboard.

“You came back for this? He waggles his finger at the angel.

Cas rolls his eyes. “I came back for you. Don’t do that again. If you’re hungry, Sam has food keeping warm in the oven.”

Food, with his brother and their angel, now that he doesn’t have half a forest rammed under his fingernail.

“Guess I could eat.”


End file.
